Chapter 3 - The Blood line
The private medical suite on the fourth floor of the west wing did not look like a prison, but Clara knew it was one.
The room was vast, furnished with a king-sized bed covered in ivory silk, a nursery area equipped with a brand-new wooden crib, and a sitting room with plush leather armchairs. But the windows were made of reinforced ballistic glass that did not open, and outside the heavy oak door stood two six-foot-two men in charcoal suits whose heavy shoulders bulged against their jackets.
For three hours, Clara paced the Persian rug, clutching Mia against her shoulder.
Mia was feeling better. The nebulizer treatment had cleared her lungs, her breathing was smooth and rhythmic, and she was currently occupied with chewing on the corner of a clean linen napkin Dr. Evans had left behind.
"It’s going to be okay, baby," Clara whispered, her voice trembling as she kissed the top of Mia’s head. "It’s going to be okay. Mommy’s here. I’m not going to let them take you."
But inside, Clara was drowning in terror.
She remembered May fourteenth at St. Margaret’s Hospital.
She remembered thirty-six hours of agonizing labor in a cramped, fluorescent-lit ward reserved for uninsured patients. She remembered the cold metal of the delivery table, the harsh blue lights, and the exhausted face of the resident doctor who had handed her a tiny, crying blue bundle and said, "She’s small, Miss Hayes, but she’s a fighter."
Clara had been alone in that room. There had been no flowers, no family, no proud father standing by her side. Just a young woman who had made a terrible mistake eighteen months prior with a charismatic, blue-eyed stranger she had met while working late shifts at a diner in East Boston.
A stranger named Mark... who had vanished three weeks after she told him she was pregnant.
Clara’s hand flew to her mouth as a cold, terrifying thought struck her like a lightning bolt.
Mark.
He had been tall. He had dark hair, light blue eyes, and a effortless, dangerous charm that had swept her off her feet. He had driven an expensive black car, paid for everything in crisp hundred-dollar bills, and had never given her a last name.
“Call me Mark,” he had whispered into her hair in a cheap motel room in Revere. “It’s safer that way.”
Clara’s knees buckled. She sank onto the edge of the bed, her mind spinning wildly out of control.
Could "Mark" have been Julian Rourke?
Could the man who had left her alone, broke, and pregnant in a cold apartment have been the younger brother of Boston’s most feared crime boss?
The heavy iron latch of the suite door clicked open.
Clara snapped her head up, her body tensing instantly.
Dominic Rourke walked into the room.
He had changed his shirt; he now wore a plain black cashmere sweater that made his broad shoulders look even more imposing. In his right hand, he held an unsealed yellow manila envelope. Behind him stood Marcus Thorne, holding a leather folder.
Dominic stopped five feet from the bed.
The silence in the room stretched until Clara thought her heart would burst from her chest.
"The lab in Cambridge processed the sample on an expedited emergency protocol," Dominic said. His voice was completely flat, stripped of all human warmth, like a report being read by a machine.
Clara clutched Mia tighter, her knuckles turning white. "And?" she whispered.
Dominic pulled a white sheet of paper from the envelope. He did not look at it; he had clearly already read every word.
"The genetic markers are conclusive," Dominic said. "The child possesses a ninety-nine-point-nine percent probability of familial relation to the Rourke bloodline."
A sharp, painful gasp escaped Clara’s lips. "No..."
"She is a Rourke," Dominic said. He stepped closer, his cold gray eyes fixing on Mia, who looked up from her napkin and let out a soft, happy gurgle. "She carries Julian’s DNA."
"Mr. Rourke, listen to me!" Clara cried, scrambling off the bed, her eyes swimming with tears. "I didn't steal her! I swear on my life I didn't steal her! I met a man... eighteen months ago. He called himself Mark. He was tall, dark hair, blue eyes—"
"Mark was Julian’s alias when he handled street distribution in South Boston," Marcus Thorne interrupted smoothly from the doorway, his voice cold and analytical. "He used it for three years."
Clara felt as if the remaining air in her lungs had been replaced by ash. "He... he was Julian?"
"Yes," Dominic said quietly.
"Then she’s my baby!" Clara wept, clutching Mia so tightly the child gave a little grunt of protest. "She’s my biological daughter! I carried her for nine months! I went through labor at St. Margaret’s! You can check the hospital birth records!"
Dominic held up his hand, silencing her.
"I checked the hospital records two hours ago, Clara," Dominic said. His gray eyes hardened, becoming as cold as the sea outside. "St. Margaret’s Hospital records show that on May fourteenth, at 3:14 AM, a child was born to a patient named Clara Hayes."
Clara nodded frantically. "Yes! See? I’m telling you the truth!"
"The records also show," Dominic continued, his voice dropping into a terrifyingly low register, "that the child born to Clara Hayes was pronounced dead forty-five minutes later due to severe pulmonary hypoplasia."
The room went completely dark before Clara’s eyes.
She swayed on her feet, the carpet seeming to rise up to meet her. "What... what did you say?"
"Your baby died, Clara," Dominic said ruthlessly. "According to the official, state-certified medical records of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Clara Hayes’ daughter died in the NICU at St. Margaret’s."
"No!" Clara screamed, a sound of pure, unadulterated madness tearing from her throat. "No! That’s a lie! That’s a lie! They handed her to me! I held her! She was breathing! I nursed her!"
"You were heavily sedated following an emergency C-section," Marcus Thorne chimed in, opening his leather folder. "According to the nursing logs, you were unconscious for fourteen hours after the delivery."
"Lydia Vance was in the same maternity ward that night," Dominic said, stepping directly in front of Clara. "Lydia gave birth to Julian’s child—a healthy girl. But Lydia didn't want a child. She wanted money. She had already taken a million dollars from me, and she knew that if she handed the child over to the family, her golden goose was dead."
Dominic leaned down, his scarred face inches from Clara’s pale, tear-soaked cheek.
"Lydia paid Dr. Robert Mercer—the chief attending physician—two hundred thousand dollars to fake a stillbirth," Dominic whispered, every word slicing into Clara’s heart like a scalpel. "They took Julian’s baby from Lydia’s room, switched the medical bracelets while you were unconscious, and handed you the living child... while registering your dead baby under Lydia’s name to be buried in my family’s plot."
Clara fell to her knees.
The carpet caught her, but she didn't feel it. She held Mia against her breast, her body shaking with violent, uncontrollable sobs.
My baby died. The child I birthed died in the dark while I slept. And the child in my arms... belongs to a dead mobster.
"No, no, no," Clara sobbed, burying her face in Mia’s soft pink blanket, her tears soaking through the fabric. "She’s mine... she’s mine... I fed her... I stayed up with her when she couldn't breathe... I bought her clothes... she’s my daughter..."
Dominic stood over her, looking down at the broken young woman weeping on his floor.
For a long moment, the ruthless mob boss who had executed five men without blinking looked strangely hollow. His gray eyes drifted from Clara’s bowed head to the tiny girl sitting in her lap.
Mia reached out with her small hand, clutching a fold of Clara’s navy-blue maid skirt, looking up at Dominic with wide, innocent blue eyes.
"Papa?" Mia gurgled softly.
Dominic shut his eyes tightly.
"Marcus," Dominic said, his voice strained, thick with an emotion he could not hide.
May you like
"Yes, Boss?"
"Find Dr. Robert Mercer," Dominic commanded, opening his eyes—and in them burned a fire that threatened to scorch the entire city of Boston. "Bring him to the warehouse on Pier 4. Now."
